Steve Urbon: Scott Brown lays low during GOP convention

Do they have an empty seat with Scott Brown's name on it on the floor of the Republican National Convention this week?

Do they have an empty seat with Scott Brown's name on it on the floor of the Republican National Convention this week?

I suspect not, but our junior senator is conspicuous by his absence in Tampa to celebrate the presidential nomination of Mitt Romney, fellow Massachusetts Republican. It's not quite what a lot of people, including me, were thinking back in January 2010 when Brown upset Attorney General Martha Coakley by out-campaigning her with lots of help from the tea party movement, including their most famous backers, the Koch brothers, wealthy industrialists who spend millions in support of conservative and libertarian causes.

Brown looked like a rising superstar who was bound to get the spotlight in Tampa.

But no.

Brown's campaign spokesman insisted to me that it is pure coincidence that Brown, a colonel in the National Guard, would pull two days of Pentagon duty right in the middle of the convention.

But the GOP announced that Tampa would be the site in May 2010, more than two years ago. Are Guard deployments scheduled that far in advance? I called them to find out but I didn't get an answer.

Really, there's no mystery what is going on here. Brown ticked off the tea party early on by taking positions that weren't exactly what the tea party brass insisted on. He actually works with Democrats, which these days is heresy.

And now, he's got Democrats making TV ads for him: former Boston mayor Ray Flynn, former Worcester mayor Konnie Lukes and former Bristol County district attorney Paul F. Walsh Jr.

What do the Koch brothers, one of whom is on video being asked by Brown for more money in 2011, think of this?

I tried to contact Walsh, but he has fled the scene, according to his law office voicemail, and cannot be reached before Sept. 15 in any way.

But Walsh has done this cross-party endorsement thing before, and I accept what he says that he's "voting for the person," not the party, as the cliche goes.

Brown knows full well that he's got to get the voting public thinking this way to win re-election. The "R" word is absent from his campaign website and absent from his TV ads.

And Brown is absent from the convention, at least until Thursday when he is expected to attend — but not make a speech.

I was really hoping he would be up there on the convention stage because then we would have a much better idea of how Brown is thought of within his own party.

My guess is that it wouldn't be pretty.

Which leads me to this: Sometimes when we want to vote the person and not the party, it is impossible to do. In fact, it's irresponsible.

Choose Brown or Democrat Elizabeth Warren and your choice will come with a long list of mostly like-minded associates who for better or worse cannot be ignored. (Republicans Mitch McConnell and Michelle Bachmann on the one hand, Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid on the other.)

Margaret "MarDee" Xifaras of Marion, a longtime Democratic Party organizer, said "All we need ask is how much Scott Brown supports (Senate Minority Leader) Mitch McConnell. In the House, does he support (Speaker John) Boehner? How does he feel about Paul Ryan? These are all people he has to respond and answer to. He thinks he can be independent but the reality is that there's partisan gridlock."

Even some Republicans feel that way. Longtime local GOP leader Arthur Larrivee of Dartmouth expressed much the same thought: "Brown is very, very sincere and trying to do the best job that he can. He's willing to go across the aisle. He's not averse to that.

"But because we've got both sides of the aisle to the point where they won't even say good morning ... we're getting crap accomplished in that manner."

Brown's in a tough spot, running as a Republican in a blue state like this. But his own party has made it a whole lot harder for him to ask for voters to vote for the person and not the party.

I'm Steve Urbon and I approved this message.

Steve Urbon's column appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in The Standard-Times and at SouthCoastToday.com. He can be reached at 508-979-4448 or surbon@s-t.com.